


Different Meanings

by artemisgrace



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anger, Conflict, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Character Death, mention of suicide, some jokes are not funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 20:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19857400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artemisgrace/pseuds/artemisgrace
Summary: Sally and Anderson unthinkingly make a bad joke in front of John sometime after the Fall . . . It does not go over well.





	Different Meanings

**Author's Note:**

> Please take note: This brief scene is the immediate fallout of someone making a joke about suicide. The joke is not included because that would be awful, but suicide is still mentioned.
> 
> Dedicated to some a-holes who really shouldn't be going into forensics if they're gonna make jokes like that. They know who they are, and I hope they grow into better people.

Even from the perspective of an objective stranger, it hadn’t been a funny joke. 

It sounded regurgitated, like something they’d seen in some chatroom online, among the multitude of juvenile and detached evils that tend to lurk in such places, like something someone else made up. And somehow that was worse, because it wasn’t simply cruel, but lazily so, a useless, pointless cruelty. One that they hadn’t even put the effort into.

John’s been trying to be understanding, to be kind. Been trying to keep it together. Trying to keep himself from acting too unrestrained. He knows that they were manipulated, that their vision is still fogged, their minds still contaminated with lies. It’s not their fault, he tells himself, it’s not their fault. They don’t know, because they can’t. How could they? They never knew Sherlock, not like John did.

A part of him says they don’t know any better, and part of him doesn’t give two shits about that.

He’s been trying, but it’s been so hard, so FUCKING hard to let anything go, to swallow down the bile that rises whenever someone says something insensitive, whenever they forget that John’s world is still in pieces, even if theirs never was. He’d waited, even, before accepting one of the dozens of invitations he’s gotten from Greg to join the group at the pub, waiting until he could get himself at least somewhat under control, waiting in the hopes that Sally and Anderson might’ve gotten all the “I told you so” smugness out of their systems, but evidently he hadn’t waited quite long enough . . .

Sally and Anderson are still laughing, playfully nudging each other with their elbows, and John knows they probably say such things as a means of lessening, of ignoring their own guilt. A way to keep the sick feeling from their stomachs, a way to prove that they’d not done anything all that wrong. How could they have been wrong when they can laugh like this?

Laughter afterwards is the realm of the innocent, of those with unsullied hands. They’re laughing now because they are innocent, and they’re innocent, they tell themselves, because they are able to laugh now. The logic is circular, but that’s not an uncommon thing. It’s a sort of self-defense.

Either that, or they really are that shallow, vapid, and heartless. Time will tell, John supposes.

Either way, he sure as fuck isn’t going to forgive it, he sure as fuck won’t let it pass quietly. He’s not that good-natured.

They haven’t noticed the way that Greg has gone absolutely rigid at John’s side, knuckles white around the pint he’s holding and his eyes wide, stuck on John as if watching a stick of dynamite with only millimeters left to burn on the cord. John watches him freeze in an oddly detached way . . . John hasn’t gone stiff like Greg has, he’s loose and a terrible sort of calm, and it’s a feeling he recognizes in the darkest parts of himself as the most dangerous way he’s ever felt, the way he’s felt right before doing the worst things he’s ever done . . .

Greg sees that too, sees the way that John takes a last sip before setting down his pint, and Greg immediately abandons his own drink, tense, still watching John’s every move, as if he understands exactly how badly this moment could go. He’s afraid of John, at least, afraid of what he’ll do, and John’s never seen him look like that before. It startles John a bit, to see that fear on Greg’s face.

It’s enough for him to get at least a bit of a grip on himself, enough that he probably won’t do anything he could be prosecuted for, and he’s aware that had he had any more to drink tonight, before the words were spoken, that he would be throwing his barstool right now rather than sitting on it. As it is, he’s gonna be the bigger man, he’s gonna be the one with composure, because that’s what Sherlock would do whenever a taunt truly struck a chord, he’d never let it go, but neither would he give them the satisfaction of breaking down. It’s a different kind of bravery, and it’s one that John always admired.

“Funny,” John says, voice flat, and it startles Sally and Anderson from their episode of hilarity, the laughter swallowed abruptly in surprise, and Greg too looking more than a little shocked, “Not your joke, but you.”

“What?” Anderson voices his slightly tipsy confusion, catching on slower than Sally, whose face has already begun to fall.

“You spent so much time over the years calling Sherlock a psychopath, a sociopath, whatever, but now here you are saying things more heartless than anything he ever said,” John smiles bitterly, not daring to look at them now, lest his composure break, “He knew better than to joke about someone’s suicide, let alone make that joke in front of the deceased’s loved ones.”

“John-” Sally tries to interject, but John’s not going to let that happen.

“Shut up,” he says firmly, with that awful calm tempering his voice, Greg’s hand inching over to hold him back before John waves him away “You told him so much about how he wasn’t properly human, how he didn’t feel anything, how empty he was. How insensitive he was. But look at you, laughing about someone dying in front of his best friend. Sherlock Holmes knew better than that.”

He stands from his seat, pulls out his wallet and slaps some money onto the counter, probably more than strictly required for his drink, but John’s not in a place to bother with exact change right now. He turns then, finally looking Anderson and Sally in the eyes, communicating with a look just how deep in shit they are in John’s own eyes. 

“For all the difficulties he had with propriety and emotions, he still knew better than to do that, without even having to be told. He knew better, and you don’t,” he spits out as he takes his leave, turning his back on them and tossing out a last “What does that say about you?”

The door closes heavily behind him, but he doesn’t look back, doesn’t bother turning around to see Anderson and Sally’s faces, their shock and their shame. He doesn’t bother because they don’t matter, they don’t matter a bit, not their judgement, not their bad jokes, and Sherlock’s name doesn’t have the same meaning in their mouths: it’s not the same word when they speak it. On John’s lips, it means something entirely different.

Sherlock, as a person, means something different to him.

John’s been getting better recently: he’s gone back to work, he’s eating reasonably well again, he sleeps better. He’s getting better, but Sherlock’s name will probably always be the sound of things that could have been, that should have been . . . and that weren’t. Sometimes it seems like the pain will last forever, but it won’t; Sherlock’s name won’t always sound so sad. Someday, John will wake up with the thought of him and he’ll smile, rather than flinch and close his eyes tight against the terrible reality of his absence. 

Someday it won’t hurt this much. John just has to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> Sally and Anderson aren't really bad people, they were just being mean and weren't thinking. They do sort themselves out and get better, now that they've been told off, it's just a learning process.


End file.
